The continued march to cloud based services that connect to appliance-like devices now includes a full spectrum of options including private clouds, public clouds, edge clouds and blended clouds. This move to cloud capabilities is transforming business models and operating approaches. It is also having a direct impact on server sales globally.

Regarding security, we continue to believe that when security is engineered into your solution, cloud computing is a much more secure approach. There are issues, of course, with multi-tenancy, availability, confidentiality of data. There are also issues of requiring assurance of path to capability and a need to be able to apply more rules to every gate at line rate with no delay (for more see Centripetal Networks).

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A recent study completed by Gartner titled Survey Analysis: Adoption of Cloud ERP, 2013 Through 2023 published on January 24, 2014, written by Nigel Rayner advises CIOs and application leaders of financial services institutions to “consider cloud ERP as a potential replacement for aging core ERP systems that are out of support or running on an old technology platforms (such as mainframes).“

The methodology is based on a survey of Gartner Research Circle members from North America, EMEA, APAC and Latin America from companies that range in size from $10M to $10B.

Key take-aways of the study including the following:

• Including the 2% that already have core ERP in the cloud, a total of 47% of organizations surveyed plan to move their core ERP systems to the cloud within five years. This is because their ERP requirements tend to be focused around administrative ERP (financials, human capital management and procure-to-pay …

Is the pendulum swinging back toward local datacenters running private cloud? Certainly some decisions I’m getting involved in indicate it is in my little part of the world.

But first let me ask, did the pendulum ever really swing toward public cloud? A survey conducted in Sept 2013 by Cloud Passage of SMBs and enterprises (more than 1,000 employees) found 21% deploying private cloud only and 13% deploying public clouds only, with 48% deploying both. The survey also found smaller businesses including public cloud more frequently.

Getting hard numbers on public vs. private is impossible. So given the one metric above and a few years’ experience writing and researching the topic, I’ll provide my take:

Initial enthusiasm was for public cloud taking over the world. The vision of Nic Carr’s The Big Switch prevailed in cloud-related articles and speeches , in which computer resources were delivered and measured like water or electricity. This school of thought believed that there was no such thing as private cloud – if it was on-premise, it wasn’t cloud.

VMware’s success in virtualizing a couple billion dollars worth of datacenters per year refuted the Big Switch vision. Even though proponents have always been careful to say that virtualization alone is not cloud, it sure feels that way when your local resources are suddenly much more productive and running much hotter.

The era of hybrid cloud ensued.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Kant (but not Hegel) would be proud.

How Much?
I’ve long thought it would be very helpful if Jeff Bezos released the revenue figures for Amazon’s public-cloud offerings. Surely he considers the secrecy of this information as part of his competitive advantage.

More important, I’d like to know, as a potential customer, Amazon’s revenue and expenses, difficult as it may be to determine them. Because I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that not only should cost savings not be a reason to move to public cloud, but in fact, no such savings exist.

Total upfront cost aside, I made the opex vs. capex argument in favor of public cloud many times in the early days of a few years ago.

Think Local
But now, I’m tasked with building a cloud for a startup with ambitious goals. The firm has capex, in fact, wants to spend money on capital expenditure because it’s tangible and easily funded. In running the numbers, I’ve found that we may be able to build and operate our datacenter locally for less money over three years than to simply buy public cloud resources.

We’ll also have the additional benefits of stimulating a local economy (in rural Northern Illinois) that needs it badly, while tapping into a large fiber-optic network that was just laid down throughout the region as part of an $85 million government program. We have all the brick-and-mortar, construction expertise, and bandwidth we need here. We can provide jobs every step of the way, including once we’re up and running.

I’m evaluating a whole bunch (for lack of a more elegant, precise term) of alternatives for PaaS (to create the software that will drive the datacenter), and for a private-cloud infrastructure that makes performance and economic sense.

We can do this with just a single rack of servers to start – I’m not talking about recreating an NSA or Google site. But we can blast enough cyberkinetic energy into the tubes of the Internet to serve a very ambitious business plan with our own private cloud. If we need more, we have plenty of room, bandwidth (as I said already), and electricity.

And if we run short of processing at any step of the way, I’ll just give Jeff Bezos a call and see if he has some extra-large instances to sell to me on an occasional basis.

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Is the pendulum swinging back toward local datacenters running private cloud? Certainly some decisions I’m getting involved in indicate it is in my little part of the world.

But first let me ask, did the pendulum ever really swing toward public cloud? A survey conducted in Sept 2013 by Cloud Passage of SMBs and enterprises (more than 1,000 employees) found 21% deploying private cloud only and 13% deploying public clouds only, with 48% deploying both. The survey also found smaller businesses including public cloud more frequently.

Getting hard numbers on public vs. private is impossible. So given the one metric above and a few years’ experience writing and researching the topic, I’ll provide my take:

Initial enthusiasm was for public cloud taking over the world. The vision of Nic Carr’s The Big Switch prevailed in cloud-related articles and speeches , in which computer resources were delivered and measured like water or electricity. This school of thought believed that there was no such thing as private cloud – if it was on-premise, it wasn’t cloud.

VMware’s success in virtualizing a couple billion dollars worth of datacenters per year refuted the Big Switch vision. Even though proponents have always been careful to say that virtualization alone is not cloud, it sure feels that way when your local resources are suddenly much more productive and running much hotter.

The era of hybrid cloud ensued.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Kant (but not Hegel) would be proud.

How Much?
I’ve long thought it would be very helpful if Jeff Bezos released the revenue figures for Amazon’s public-cloud offerings. Surely he considers the secrecy of this information as part of his competitive advantage.

More important, I’d like to know, as a potential customer, Amazon’s revenue and expenses, difficult as it may be to determine them. Because I’m getting the sneaking suspicion that not only should cost savings not be a reason to move to public cloud, but in fact, no such savings exist.

Total upfront cost aside, I made the opex vs. capex argument in favor of public cloud many times in the early days of a few years ago.

Think Local
But now, I’m tasked with building a cloud for a startup with ambitious goals. The firm has capex, in fact, wants to spend money on capital expenditure because it’s tangible and easily funded. In running the numbers, I’ve found that we may be able to build and operate our datacenter locally for less money over three years than to simply buy public cloud resources.

We’ll also have the additional benefits of stimulating a local economy (in rural Northern Illinois) that needs it badly, while tapping into a large fiber-optic network that was just laid down throughout the region as part of an $85 million government program. We have all the brick-and-mortar, construction expertise, and bandwidth we need here. We can provide jobs every step of the way, including once we’re up and running.

I’m evaluating a whole bunch (for lack of a more elegant, precise term) of alternatives for PaaS (to create the software that will drive the datacenter), and for a private-cloud infrastructure that makes performance and economic sense.

We can do this with just a single rack of servers to start – I’m not talking about recreating an NSA or Google site. But we can blast enough cyberkinetic energy into the tubes of the Internet to serve a very ambitious business plan with our own private cloud. If we need more, we have plenty of room, bandwidth (as I said already), and electricity.

And if we run short of processing at any step of the way, I’ll just give Jeff Bezos a call and see if he has some extra-large instances to sell to me on an occasional basis.

read more

HP today announced HP Access Catalog, a SaaS-delivered mobile app and content store that allows corporations to quickly and securely deliver resources across mobile and desktop devices to their employees anywhere.
IT organizations are facing pressure to deliver a marketplace experience to employees who expect access to content and apps from their device of choice. But non-business controlled exchanges and app stores lack enterprise security and control. Companies must also protect their apps from access by outsiders.

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Gigamon® has announced the appointment of Paul Milbury to its board of directors. He has also been appointed as a member of the company’s Audit Committee.
“Paul’s extensive industry knowledge and his broad executive experience in a variety of networking and information technology companies will help us to deliver long term value for our customers and shareholders,” said Corey Mulloy, chairman of the Gigamon Board of Directors. “We warmly welcome Paul to the board.”

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Gigamon® has announced the appointment of Paul Milbury to its board of directors. He has also been appointed as a member of the company’s Audit Committee.
“Paul’s extensive industry knowledge and his broad executive experience in a variety of networking and information technology companies will help us to deliver long term value for our customers and shareholders,” said Corey Mulloy, chairman of the Gigamon Board of Directors. “We warmly welcome Paul to the board.”

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Cloud computing is changing our world, sharing common platforms for global information exchange. Self-service computing makes the Internet come alive, helping users visualize and analyze location-aware information. Configurable applications deliver a solution framework for integration, collaboration, and efficiency. Cloud-based applications integrate and synthesize information from many sources, facilitating communication and collaboration, and breaking down barriers between institutions, disciplines, and cultures. Online platforms enable real-time access from everyone. Web connectivity provides a common information source, elaborating, collaborating, and sharing holistic approaches for content awareness.

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Last year’s revelations of government surveillance programs by the NSA and others, along with possible lack of enforcement of the Safe Harbor program by the FTC, caused the European Civil Liberties Committee to recommend suspending the entire EU-U.S. Safe Harbor approach. If the recommendation was followed, the implications for businesses would be dramatic. U.S. companies would no longer be able to enjoy the simplified data sharing policy currently in place for those that are able to meet EU requirements to earn Safe Harbor certification. Certified companies are able to transfer private customer data out of the EU and receive transfers of data from EU companies as long as they properly meet renewal requirements each year.
While the repeal has not taken place, just recently, a high-level EU official called for suspending the agreement if the US did not meet some new and stricter data sharing policies by this summer.

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A hybrid cloud may become the solution as the debate between public vs private cloud becomes so 2013. The industry’s experts will debate on when the hybrid clouds are and are not the be all and end all and if the infrastructure supporting the hybrid clouds really matters. As stated by IBM, “Dynamic hybrid cloud environments are harmonizing computing demands and capabilities – public and private clouds, on and off-premise clouds, and traditional IT environments.”

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